How do live plants do better in gravel?I prefer gravel and will never change to sand, the big advantage with gravel is that you get water movement through your substrate, which doesn't happen as easily with sand. I also like the fact that if your fish spawn the fry have somewhere to hide, so the chances of raising a few youngsters is increased. You are not interested in plants but live plants do better with gravel than sand.
I think your gravel looks really nice in your tank but I feel it limits stocking. I would never put any corydoras species in there or other pleco/catfish that like soft substrates to dig around in.